


A Promise Kept

by Lisa_Lisa



Series: After the Qliphoth [1]
Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Children, Children are fond of Vergil despite himself, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Promises, Teasing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:26:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26839687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lisa_Lisa/pseuds/Lisa_Lisa
Summary: Nero ‘convinces’ Vergil to fulfill the promise V and him made to a certain child.
Relationships: Nero & Vergil (Devil May Cry), Nero/Vergil (Devil May Cry)
Series: After the Qliphoth [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1957783
Comments: 10
Kudos: 53





	A Promise Kept

**Author's Note:**

> For the ones who haven't read [Cruelty Has a Human Heart](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19270597/chapters/45829960), you can learn about the child OC that appears here by checking [the chapter 4](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19270597/chapters/46829092) of that fic :)  
> However, if you don't have the time for it, you only have to know that she's a child that V and Nero saved when travelling together during the month that happened between DMC5 prologue and mission 1 ;)

“Could you tell me again why we are doing this?”

Nero exhaled a resigned sigh, throwing a side glance at Vergil sitting in the copilot seat with his elbow leaning on the van’s window. He still couldn’t believe that Nico had agreed on lending them ‘her babe’ for the following weeks, although the deposit they had been forced to pay the craftswoman so that she was convinced they’d return it in one piece had been exorbitant, as usual.

“Because we promised,” he said with patience.

“We or _you_?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Vergil threw him a look that indicated that in fact it did matter. “Look, V didn’t say anything against it at the time, which means that he also agreed to it.”

Vergil clicked his tongue.

“My human half did a lot of things _I_ wouldn’t have agreed on.”

‘ _Yeah, like confessing to love me_ ,’ was in the tip of Nero’s tongue to say, but he refrained himself from teasing Vergil. The probabilities of his father forcing him to stop the car were too high for him to risk, and the last thing he wanted was to fight under the sun of August.

“Well, then you should have thought about it better before stabbing yourself.”

His father exhaled a long deep sigh, as if the man’s patience was the one in being tested when Nero was quite sure it was the other way around.

“I guess I shouldn’t remind you that we have a job to do. We cannot allow ourselves to waste unnecessary time by making useless detours.”

“We aren’t making _any_ detours. The place we’re going is just on the way.”

“I disagree. According to that device screen, we are constantly going away from our destination.”

“Dad, _that dot_ is the office. Our destination is _this icon_.”

Vergil squinted his eyes, as if doing that would miraculously help him understand how the Maps application worked.

“...And how was I supposed to know that that inverse teardrop is our destination?”

“I don't know, maybe because it’s pointing at the place we’re going?”

“Tsk, foolish.”

Nero bit back a chuckle when Vergil gave that childish reply in a super serious irritated tone. During the month and half Vergil and Dante had spent in the Underworld, Nero had finally bought himself a mobile, deciding that depending on phone booths was starting to be too old fashioned for someone of his age.

He had got the hang of it already, but it seemed it was going to take his father a little more to get used to it, mainly because the man was stubborn as fuck and sucked at admitting to need his help.

Roughly forty-five minutes later they reached Hillside. Nero gulped when seeing that there were remnants of the destruction the demons caused in the small city while the Qliphoth was in the process of being invoked. However, once he drove further inside the city, the damage was almost non-existent, and a wave of relief invaded him when verifying that the familiar house where V and him had been staying during their journey was still standing.

“Here we are,” Nero announced, making sure to set the parking brake in the steep street. He was about to open the door of his side when noticing that Vergil’s posture betrayed that he didn’t have the least intention of abandoning the car. “Uhm, dad?”

“I will wait for you here.”

Nero looked at Vergil as if the man was dumb.

“Ehm, no. You are coming too.”

It was Vergil’s turn to look at him in the same way.

“You do realize I look completely different now, don’t you?”

Nero exhaled a patient sigh, offering Vergil his right hand next.

“You wanna bet if she recognizes you or not?”

Vergil looked at Nero’s hand, half-closing his eyes at him next.

“What do I obtain if she doesn’t?”

Nero thought for a moment before his eyes illuminated.

“There won’t be more detours until reaching the client’s city.”

“And if you win?”

“We’ll stay if they invite us to lunch, something they’ll do for sure.”

Vergil averted his eyes, silently considering his options before accepting his handshake.

“I hope you are not hungry, son, because those stops in gas stations are included in those detours.”

Nero opened his mouth to protest, but Vergil had already opened the door of his side to exit the vehicle, not leaving room for discussion. He scratched the back of his head while cursing, realizing he should have thought better about the terms of the bet because damn, his father’s capacity of going on with an empty stomach surpassed his by far.

He was the one in charge of pressing the doorbell while Vergil remained a few steps behind him, his reluctance to be there palpable. Nero smiled when hearing a woman’s voice from the inside, followed by a child’s one that he also recognized.

Some rapid steps sounded, followed by the peephole being unlocked, and then by a loud gasp that preceded the door being opened.

“Nero!!”

The young devil hunter huffed when Anna hugged him with force, enclosing both arms around his waist.

“Hey there,” he greeted with a warm tone, refraining his impulse of ruffling the hair of the eight years old girl, since it was combed back in a perfect braid. “I promised I’d come visit soon.”

Anna chuckled, separating from him to look up at him.

“You know, a week or so after you left, my friends and I started hearing noises in the library again! _But_ we warned everyone about the monsters being back and the adults blocked the whole place and warned the police in time, so when they attacked, we were more or less ready and—”

The girl suddenly stopped to fix her big brown eyes in Vergil, who automatically tensed. The girl frowned, separating from Nero in silence to give a couple of tentative steps towards the older man. She looked a little confused as she scanned Vergil, but just when Nero thought that maybe his hunch would be incorrect, Anna’s eyes illuminated in recognition.

“The bird guy!!”

Nero had to bite back a laugh when discovering that Vergil’s awkwardness towards children hadn’t changed one bit. His reaction when Anna hugged him as well was the same as V’s had been in the past, consisting of not knowing what to do with his arms until eventually patting the girl’s head with hesitation.

“I win.”

Vergil huffed softly when hearing Nero’s cocky comment, but there was the ghost of a smirk in his face when Anna separated with a light blush in her cheeks. The girl started to play with her hair, looking as nervous as she had been when V was around. Nero was wondering how the hell Vergil managed to have such success with children and women with such a closed-in personality when he heard someone else stopping at the door.

Nero turned around. Anna’s mother was on the frame, her shocked eyes fixed in Vergil.

“Look, mum!!” Anna said with enthusiasm. “Nero and the bird guy are back!!”

Certainly, Nero couldn’t blame the woman for looking so confused while diverting her eyes to him.

“If I ask, will I understand the answer?”

Nero began to laugh when hearing the woman’s resigned question, but before he could answer, Anna was already dragging Vergil inside by holding his hand. The happiness the girl was displaying seemed to convince her mother that all those questions could wait for a later moment, or that they weren’t even necessary.

When passing by his side, Vergil offered Nero a look that said he would be paying for the socialization that was going to ensue. However, being able to witness Vergil completely out of his element, barely able to catch up with Anna’s incessant and enthusiastic questions, convinced Nero that any punishment that Vergil came up with for him would be worth it.

And of course, he would make sure that his father _never_ found out about the pictures he secretly took while Anna ‘forced’ him to grab her last toys while she showed them to him. He didn’t want to die before reaching his thirties after all.


End file.
